EBIF is the abbreviation for Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format. The EBIF standard which has been developed as an OpenCable specification by Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. is described in the publicly available specification: Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format 1.0, OC-SP-ETV-BIF1.0406-110128, (Jan. 28, 2011)
EBIF files communicate information and actions to be taken by an application such as, for example, an ETV user agent on a STB. The ETV (Enhanced Television) user agent will execute the actions specified an EBIF file such as present a multimedia page including content specified in an application and/or EBIF file. An application may include data, parameters used to determine the action to be taken, as well as data to be presented, e.g., displayed, based on user input and/or one or more actions being conditions being satisfied. While the current EBIF standard supports three standard User Preference Items which can be used in controlling an application, i.e., PostalCode, PrimaryLanguage, and Secondary Language, these user preference items are of only limited use in terms of targeting advertisements to users associated with the step top box on which an EBIF application is executed.
The EBIF and related OpenCable Tru-2-way specifications as published by CableLabs provide a framework that can be used to provide interactive applications that can be broadcast within a MPEG program to all the set-top receivers in the system and will be loaded, processed and run by all set-tops that are tuned to the specific program. Unfortunately, the specifications in their current format have limitations as there is no provision to target the application or its contents to a specific target audience within the system based on characteristics such as age, income levels, services to which a user already subscribes, etc. which can be important user characteristics for advertising and/or ad targeting purposes.
Advertising is an important source of revenue for cable companies, satellite companies and/or other content distributers. Advertisers are often willing to pay a premium if they are able to target their advertisements to a particular audience likely to be interested in their product and/or which is considered a desirable audience to target for a particular reason, e.g., because of their income level, age, sex or other characteristics.
In addition to providing content distributers a chance to sell targeted advertising, content distributers, e.g., cable service providers, internet service providers, etc., can find targeted advertising useful in up selling their own offerings by presenting advertisements for products which are upgrades to services and/or plans which a service subscriber has while avoiding presenting advertisements for services to which a subscriber already subscribes.
In view of the above discussion, it should be appreciated that it would be desirable if methods and/or apparatus could be developed which would allow for meaningful targeting of specific audiences via set top box applications using data and/or applications communicated in accordance with the EBIF standard and/or other formats and/or standards.